Mass Mobilization, Democratic Resilience

Dave Clark

Binghamton University

2023-08-18

Democratic Fragility

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Democracy is fragile to the extent it relies on broadly held agreement that:

  • the rules of democracy are fixed and not up for debate.

  • losing elections is ok.

The rules of game

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democratic consolidation is when a “particular system of institutions become the only game in town, when no one can imagine acting outside the democratic institutions, when all the losers want to do is to try again within the same institutions under which they have just lost.” (Przeworski 1991, 26)

Democracy and Losers

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Democratic governance makes losing acceptable because losers’ rights are protected, and because losers will have future chances to contest elections.

“Democracy is a system in which parties lose elections … It is only when there are parties that lose and when losing is neither a social disgrace nor a crime that democracy flourishes.” (Przeworski 1991, p 10)

Democratic Reslience

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Democracy is resilient if/when:

  • masses can organize and mobilize; even the threat of mobilization is powerful. Restrictions on assembly are especially dangerous (curfews, SoEs).

  • institutions can resist individuals to protect the “rules of the game.”

Fragility

Challenging the Rules

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Challenges to the “rules of the game” in various forms:

  • elected leaders try to extend and overstay their terms.

  • leaders/parties try to change rules about citizenship, suffrage, or absentee voting to their advantages.

  • governments limit how civilians can oppose changes to the rules, eg through repression, States of Emergency, curfews.

Leaders trying to Overstay their Terms

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Versteeg et al. (2020) measure leaders’ attempts to overstay their terms in office since 2000; they identify 234 elected terms of which there are:

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Attempts to Overstay
Attempts Successes Failures
59 34 25

Leaders trying to Overstay their Terms

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They identify several strategies by which leaders have sought to evade term limits:

  • amending the constitution (China, Colombia, Belarus, Rwanda)
  • using courts to invalidate term limits (rare, but successful)
  • choosing faithful successors they can control (e.g. Putin, Medvedev)
  • delay elections citing instability

Manipulating Electoral Rules & Citizenship

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The MERC project (Andy Foote) documents efforts since 1990 to change laws regulating citizenship, suffrage, or absentee voting.

MERC Events
Attempts Successes Failures
285 191 49

Manipulation and Protests

Resilience

Protests Demanding Leader Change

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Have increased since 2010; are credited with some of the failed efforts to overstay elected terms.

Democracy and Manipulation

Evidence of resilience

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  • Attempts to overstay tend to happen in democracies.

  • Attempts in democracies are more likely to fail.

  • States with populist leaders/governments are more likely to attempt to overstay (Global Populism Database, Hawkins et al.).

  • Organized protests deter overstaying attempts and increase the chances of failure.

Evidence of resilience

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  • Democracies are most at risk for manipulation laws.

  • Manipulation efforts are more likely to fail in stronger democracies.

  • Organized protests are associated with failed manipulation attempts.

States of Emergency

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Outside the pandemic, SoEs are common way for leaders to limit protests. Organized protest movements play an interesting role in SoE declarations.

Organization refines purpose and method of protests, and creates costs for repression. [This may mean organizers attract repression prior to protests.]

States of Emergency

Populism

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Populism is not the cause of this, but is correlated with it. Populism:

  • points to the status quo as the root of the problem (often, the corruption of the status quo)

  • points to crises (economic, corruption, immigration) as cause for changing rules

Quiet Backsliding

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We often think about aggregate indicators of regime when we talk about backsliding. Democracy is at risk to the extent its participants cannot count on the validity of losing elections, or where the rules of democracy themselves are under debate.

What Drives Resilience?

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  • What mechanisms underlie democratic resistance to assaults on democracy?

  • What makes democracies able to defend the “rules of the game?”

  • What mobilizes protesters in defense of democracy?